A Chick Called Mick

My friend Robyn is one of the nicest, sweetest, kindest, most badass women I know.  She is blunt and sassy and she is not interested in any B.S. you (or her students) might be trying to sell.  She is also engaged.  I got my wedding invitation in the mail this weekend, and unlike on the Save the Date card, she even spelled my name right this time.  We're very close, really.

I have only one regret about Robyn getting married, and it is that we won't shop for her bachelorette present together.  After we graduated from college, about half a dozen of our friends got married in quick succession.  Robyn and I were roommates at the time, and we were invited to the same parties and showers, so we usually pooled our resources at our friendly neighborhood sex shops.  She and I didn't embarrass easily and between the two of us, we never missed an opportunity for a good double entendre.  To hear us talk, we were our generation's versions of Mae West.  So, when we got invited to a bachelorette party, there was a certain degree of pressure.  We had reputations to protect.

That summer, we made enough shopping trips that we became familiar with the inventory, and we evaluated each gift on a case by case basis.  Was the bride more of a Condom Sense lady or a Curry's woman?  Were we getting them something the couple was likely to use or wildly impractical?  How much was too much, and what was so tame as to damage our aforementioned reputations? 

There were also unspoken rules about how to behave while shopping.  We never pointed or giggled or made any face that even hinted we might be surprised or scandalized by the things we saw.  Because for reasons I can't quite explain, I don't like to appear shocked.  Maybe because I grew up in a small town, I'm afraid of looking unsophisticated or inexperienced in the ways of the world.  Or maybe I just don't want to give people the satisfaction of provoking me in that way.  But whatever it is, and whatever Robyn's motives were, we played it cool.

For one shower, a friend of Robyn's from church asked to tag along.  We reluctantly agreed, then cringed as she repeatedly pointed, giggled, and called out to us, then held up merchandise with a mix of glee, embarrassment, and just a pinch of fear.  She seemed like a lovely girl, but there was probably something a little Mean Girls about the look I gave Robyn.  The one that said, "This simply will not do."

Along the way, at least one cashier mistook us for a couple.  She recommended a book for us to try for when you didn't know how to communicate your desires to your partner, which I found hilarious because if there's someone I could say anything to, it's Robyn.  And she's never been one to hold back her feelings either, which is one of my favorite things about her.

She's one of my favorite ladies even though we don't see each other very often since she moved to Cleveland.  It's mostly an email here or a voicemail there about movies we think the other might like.  Sometimes those messages start of with, "I don't know of anyone else who might like this but you..." One of those was a movie so dark and disturbing I almost threw up, but she was right that it was amazing.  She is truly a kindred spirit, and while I'm having trouble finding the right dress for the occasion (somthing that says, "I love you.  Thank you for not getting married in Cleveland in the winter.  Now, where's the bar?"), I'm thrilled for her and her fiancee, Steve.  Congrats, guys!

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (2)

My father likes to brag that he has 1,000 nicknames for me, and I think his estimate is not far off.  They range from "Sweetart" like the candy to "Carla."  They make me crazy, but I have no power to stop him.  I have tried to break him of the habit of identifying himself when he calls me.  Between caller ID and his distinctive voice, I know who it is by the time he says, "Ashley?" his usual greeting to me.  Trying to short-circuit the inevitable, I would say, "Hi, Dad" or "Hola, Papa!"  But he always insists on identifying himself.  "This is your faaaa-ther" he says dragging the vowel out and using a vaguely Boston accent to make the pronouncement.  Somehow I feel the New England based wood working shows he watches on PBS every Satruday are to blame, and breify get annoyed with both my father and Norm Abrams.  He's done this every time he calls for years now.  It's our little patter.  Just like every time I come home he will joke about how it's good to have me back under his roof and the influence of his guiding hand.  He's got a million of 'em.

Since I went to college, I've proved quite resistant to the wisdom he's tried to give me.  I stay up too late, I had male roommates, and most notably, I wear very high heels.  I have a collection of shoes with heels that range from 2.5 to 4 inches.  "You're scaring all the men away!" he tells me when I put on shoes that make me 6 feet tall.  "Men should be braver" I usually tell him.

Dad laughs whenever I give him a particularly sassy answer.  Every once in a while he describes my personality as "salty," but I can tell he approves.  I'm pretty sure I haven't turned out the way he expected his daughter to be.  When I was little, my grandmother kept me well stocked in sweet, hand-embroidered dresses, and among those 1,000 nicknames are both "little girl" and "baby girl."  But he's always teased my brother and I, giving us a hard time, and as a result we learned to give as good as we got.  It's partially his fault that I turned out as salty as I did, and I don't think he'd have it any other way.

This year, I've sent my appreciation for all those years under his roof in the form of a clock radio and in his honor I'll spend the entire day in a nice sensible pair of ballet flats.

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Before I moved to central Arkansas, I worked for a program called Upward Bound in the southwest corner of the state.  We helped prepare high school students to be the first in their family to go to college.  It's a fairly rural area, and even though I grew up there I only knew the path from my house in DeQueen to Texarkana, where I went to go shoe shopping or watch movies or eat at fancy restaurants like Applebee's.  When my boss told me she wanted me to do a recruiting presentation at the school in Saratoga, my first question was, "Where exactly is Saratoga?"

I asked everyone in my office, and they all said the same thing: "Okay, so you know how you're leaving Mineral Springs and you're headed towards Tollette..."  One of them also added as an aside that some people refer to Tollette as "toilet," which I could have guessed since they have similar pronunciations and also because I was once a third grader myself.

None of them noticed my blank stare at their explanation, though, so I finally stopped my coworker, Tina, and said, "Why would I be driving toward Tollette?  Am I lost in this scenario?"  I finally learned that Tollette is near the community of Schaal (pronounced "shawl") and halfway between Mineral Springs (a city with a population of about 1,500) and Saratoga, which is more or less a suburb of that thriving metropolis. 

I'm a city girl.  Even when I'm not living in a big city, that's where I want to be, and I try not to drift too far from the beaten path.  Nature's nice and all, but I don't want to live in it or even visit, really.

At work, we have a Page-A-Day calendar in the bathroom.  Last year it was 365 days of great books, but this year it's one of those survival handbooks.  I always thought those were meant to be a joke.  Like, their tips for how to avoid being bitten by a shark would be limited to things people learned from watching all the Jaws movies back to back, and the number one tip would involve Roy Scheider somehow.  But they're actual tips for surviving really dangerous situations.

Continue reading "By "Roughing It," Do You Mean Sleeping on Scratchy Sheets?" »

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Two people I know this week have referred to a YouTube video called Total Eclipse of the Heart: Literal Video Version.  It's basically the original video but the old lyrics have been replaced with new ones that just literally describe the weird ass stuff on the screen because have you seen that video?  With the school boys with the glowy eyes?  It's messed up.  You can watch it here. 

My friend Regina sent it to me in an email, and I didn't know what it was.  When I heard the opening notes, I screamed and closed the window immediately.  I was an Orientation Leader for the University of Arkansas one summer, and we had to do a skit...but, not really a skit because we didn't talk, so a pantomime, I guess, to that song.  It was an anti-drug bit, and I'll never know why we chose that music.  It was decided before my time, and all my fellow OLs and I could do was commit to it.  The bit went something like this:

All but two of us stand with our backs to the audience.  We are wearing black sweatshirts with the names of various drugs on the back in white letters like you'd see on a sports jersey.  For my money, the best one was the one that just said X, and it should be noted that when it got cold in our office, we would put them on.  So, I'd frequently be typing in a sweatshirt that said HEROIN.

As the music plays, a girl whose name I can't remember would wander out and then my buddy Jason would join her, frolicking onstage.  They'd skip around and cavort, but then the people in the drug shirts would seductively wave to her.  She'd begin glancing our way becoming more and more interested in us.

Breaking away, she starts hanging out with ACID, MARIJUANA and the rest.  Then, the drugs all hold hands, encircling her and running playfully around her.  But lest we forget, there's a dark side to drug use, the drugs keep Jason away.  When she tries to escape from the circle to join him, she discovers (gasp!) she is trapped.

Here, to be honest, my memory falters a bit (mostly due to how I've been suppressing it.)  This or something thematically similar happens next:  The girl begins to get scared.  She loves Jason and misses him.  They have drifted to opposite ends of the stage to represent how drugs have separated them.  Finally, she's had enough and breaks free.  Across the stage, the couple see each other and then (as the song builds in the background--Briiiiiiight Eyyyyyes!) they run to each other and embrace! 

There you have it, an anti-drug message brought to you in the form of interpretive dance.  We did that number for every session of orientation, and I think it averaged out to two shows a week.  In rehearsals, we melodramatically lip synced to the song because, really, how can you not?  Eyes squeezed shut, clutching our chests with one hand, we would just go for it.  By the end of summer, I'd head that song more times than I'd care to count, and I sort of overdosed on it.  Maybe there's a finite number of times you can hear that song, and I used them all up?  Whatever the reason, I cannot hear that song without out the totality of that whole summer hitting me at once.  It's too much.

After I'd calmed down from hearing the song for the first time in years, I finally remembered I could control the volume on my computer, and I watched the whole YouTube video on mute.  It's a different experience, but the subtitles still work pretty well to carry the joke.  And that way I can get through the whole thing without screaming and with minimal flashbacks.

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (2)

I meant to write this post days ago, but it's been one of those weeks where I just couldn't convince myself to do the things I should.  But I wanted to talk for just a minute about the Scripps-Howard Spelling Bee that was on TV this week. 

The first thing I want to say is that I am an abysmal speller (and don't think I didn't get a little help on the spelling of 'abysmal.')*  When I lived in Austin, I applied for some jobs with UT, and they required a spelling test.  I took the test twice and never scored high enough to apply for a secretarial position with the school.  So, I was never a viable spelling bee candidate.  But there's a documentary about students participating in the National Spelling Bee called Spellbound that I am in love with.  I'm actually watching it as I type this.

*In fact, if you spot any typos in this post, let's consider them an intentional inside joke between you and me.  A little wink and a nudge.  Definitely not something you should point out to me because, obviously, I did that on purpose.

When the movie first came out, I suggested to a friend that we should go see it at a local art house theatre.  Sometimes I'm such a nerd, I become embarrassed about something as I'm talking about it.  When I taught, I sometimes brought in this game called Apples to Apples, and I'd explain how to play to the students by saying, "There are noun cards and there are adjective cards..." and some of them couldn't stifle the groans and sighs at how lame this sounds.  But that game is awesome and by the end of class they want to keep playing.  Sometimes I'm a nerd who just happens to be totally right.  I think I'm right when I say that Spellbound is awesome.

It's "Academy Award Nominee" levels of good!

The film follows eight kids who are competing in the Scripps-Howard National Spelling Bee.  They are from wildly different backgrounds.  Ashley lives in inner city D.C., Ted is growing up on a farm where his family raises peacocks, Angela's father doesn't speak English, and Emily references her au pair and equestrian lessons.  April compares her parents to Archie and Edith bunker, and bless her, she's not wrong.

As you meet these kids, they are all awkward in a way that is cringingly reminiscent of my own adolescence.  I would have fit right in with them at that age with my frizzy hair and braces only on my bottom teeth.  Maybe that's why these kids got to me so much.  But once I'd met them in individual vignettes, I wanted them all to win, and that's where the drama begins.

Because, of course, they can't all win.  And as they started being eliminated, it occurred to me that maybe NONE of them would win.  This isn't a Hollywood movie.  I'm not guaranteed a happy ending here.  The film doesn't provide a correct spelling on the screen for the audience, so my friend and I would wait anxiously to see if they would ring the bell to indicate a misspelling.  It also led to a few embarrassing moments where we would shake our heads because clearly it's an "e" not an "a" only to realize the kid was right.  It's really intense, you guys!

The film is also full of really funny, quirky moments like catching Alex Cameron, the bee's official pronouncer, practicing words in his hotel room or one eliminated contestant's older brother saying, "I still think he spelled it right."  Me too, kid. 

So, if you can't get enough of likable young people being incredibly literate, you might want to check it out.  And then we'll discuss why you should watch Murderball, the documentary about quadriplegic rugby.

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (0)

My parents called this morning and wanted to come up for a few hours to spend Memorial Day with me.  It was a nice surprise--although if I'd had a little more notice I would have vacuumed, but dirty carpet is what they get for giving me little advanced warning--because my parents are kind of awesome.

Mom mentioned that they'd thought we might cook out, but since it was rainy and I don't own a grill, I didn't give much credence to that idea.  I was surprised, then, when my parents came up to my place carrying bags of groceries and a grill in a box.  A tiny grill.  One might even go so far as to call it cute, but the punishment for undermining the grill might mean one doesn't get to partake in the delicious charbroiled food cooked upon it.  So, I didn't call it cute.

I let them in, and since it was close to lunchtime, Dad started prepping the food while Mom and I sat on the couch and got caught up on the latest news.  It took me a while to realize we weren't having hamburgers.  Or hot dogs.  We were having kabobs.

Generally speaking, there's nothing wrong with kabobs, it's just that it wasn't what I was expecting.  He got this idea and wanted to try it out, and that's the sometimes weird but often wonderful thing about my dad.  He and my mother live in the small town where I grew up, and I sometimes used to joke that it was a town that almost forcibly resists culture.  But sometimes major trends and fads make it all the way to our little corner of the state, and people like my dad find out about them.  Five years after I tried my first mojito, he heard about the drink and decided he'd like to try one. 

He grew his own mint for the mojitos, and the thing you should know is that my father is a much better gardener than he is a bartender.  We had an abundance of mint, and the result was that he became very generous with it in order to prevent waste.  The first time he handed me a glass, I stared at the veritable forest floating amidst the liquid ingredients.

"Next, time, I don't want a salad at the bottom of my drink," I teased him.

When the mint started to overrun the place, he put it in the iced tea as well, and insisted on calling it "mohi-tea."  Because while he is often a really, truly funny man, my father sometimes cannot resist the siren call of a cheesy joke.

I like the fact that my father is curious and willing to try new things.  Sure, I wasn't thrilled when he commandeered a bottle of my wine to try his hand at French cooking, and we have actually had an argument about what truly makes a sandwich a panini, but generally I think it's an admirable quality.  It's one that I think I've inherited in small ways--I prefer to sample pop culture more than food, but I can be persuaded to try a new drink now and again. 

The kabobs were good, even the slices of grilled pineapple that I pooh-poohed early on turned out to be delicious, and I was glad Dad decided to try something different.  I did have hot dogs for dinner, though.  You know, just to be patriotic and all.

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (1)

I am off today, and I am sitting at home in what, sadly, might be my favorite pair of jeans.  I say "sadly" because after close to five years of denim-y good times, they need to be retired.  They were a gift from someone who couldn't wear them for some reason, but they fit me perfectly. And perhaps because I knew that they cost almost ten times what I normally pay for a pair of jeans, I have come to believe that my ass looks ten times better in them. 

No doubt this is why I have held on to them for so long.  In places, they've worn away to a few strings struggling to represent basically the idea of pants, but I've still been wearing them.  Their slow demise has come about at a time when I'm having trouble finding pants that fit well.  Too tight, too baggy, too short, too long.  I found a pair that fit ok, but they are four inches too long.  I'm not that short, which begs the question: What kind of mutants are they making pants for these days?  And all this time, my favorite pair began to erode more and more.

I stopped wearing them for a few weeks when I spotted the hole on the upper, inner thigh, but eventually I pulled them back out of the closet figuring that the hole was small and in a weird place, so maybe no one would notice.  Besides, I wear swimsuits in the summer.  People have seen my upper, inner thigh.  Big deal.  The hole has since grown, moving towards my upper, upper inner thigh, so last night, when I wore them out, I made sure I wore cute underwear, lest they be visible at the fringes of the ever growing rip.  I told myself that this, too, was not that big a deal since I used to buy and show off my cute underwear all the time in college.

Sometimes I lie to myself.  I usually know when I'm doing it, but I believe my own lies anyway because I'd really like them to be true.  Usually, it's promising that I'll get up earlier or cut back on caffeine or start eating more vegetables, but I'm reaching a point where I can no longer keep convincing myself that it's okay to wear these particular jeans.  I've seen What Not to Wear, and I know Stacy and Clinton would not approve.

But look it, I also have a pair of $12 flip flops that have tried to kill me twice, and I still have them. 


My best friend calls them The Flip Flops of Death, but they're only dangerous on rainy days.  When they get wet, their smooth bottoms become slick and caused me to once slip and crash into a door jamb before sending me crashing to the floor, where it is possible that I may have bounced a bit.  My solution is to wear them on sunny days with no chance of rain.  Because the shoes have molded to my feet, and when I slip them on, it's like their soft, rubber wraps my toes in a warm embrace and caresses my arches.  It's very comforting, which is sometimes what I want in a pair of shoes.  I need to intimidate someone, I go with the high heeled boots that put me right at six feet tall.  You've had a rough day, you want these shoes.

I'm slowly accepting that the jeans and the flip flops, and all right, a pair of red belly dancing shoes with a hole in the bottom are going to have to go.  I'm ready to look for replacements, but until I have a new favorite pair of jeans, I'm not quite ready to let the old ones go.

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (2)

I've been running on fumes all week.  My best friend came into town this weekend and stayed through Wednesday morning, so we'd been staying up late catching up, sometimes over pomegranate martinis.  Wednesday afternoon, I should have come home and taken a nap, but instead, I changed and headed out to the Little Rock Film Festival.  I didn't make it in time to get into the movie, and could have gone home and taken a nap, done a quick workout, and gone to bed.  Instead, I drank a beer and read a book called Rapture Ready, which is about Christian pop culture.  I skipped getting caught up on sleep in order to learn about Christian stand up comedy and Christian wrestling. 

I don't exactly regret making that choice because the book is really interesting, but this morning, I drank as much coffee as I could stand, edging towards the early stages of caffeine poisoning where I buzz around like a hummingbird and start to think I can actually feel my hair growing before falling asleep on the nearest flat surface.  Still a little draggy, I went to work.

We hadn't been open long before a patron who'd checked out one of our laptops came to ask me how to log on to the machine.  I followed her back to the corner where she'd set up, pushed a few buttons, and up popped a picture of a smiling woman proudly showing off her vagina.

That woke me up more than another cup of coffee could have done.

Continue reading "What a Way to Start the Day" »

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Today, I needed to buy something train related for a work thing.  I could explain why, but you'd stop caring well before I finished.  The main thing is I kept putting it off until we've gotten to the point where I'm running out of time to purchase something train-ish.  At first, I thought the idea of Hobo chalk would be funny but maybe that's because I'm a fan of John Hodgman and I saw that one episode of Mad Men.  The thing is, my item will go into a basket of similarly themed items that will be auctioned off, and I thought sidewalk chalk with a shoddily made label proclaiming it "Hobo chalk" might not be a reference everyone would find as amusing as I do.  I'm not even sure it would make sense.

I thought I'd get a copy of Strangers on a Train, which would be sort of theme related, but it's also good on its own.  I checked a couple of places where I might be able to buy a classic movie.  The key word, though, is "might."  It's a long shot because the first place I'd try to get it would be online, but I don't have that kind of time.  So, I checked Hastings with no luck and was left with Target.

First of all, I feel like if you're going to have signage claiming you have great movies at great prices, you should not have Center Stage displayed beneath it.  I'll let Troop Beverly Hills slide because I was once nine years old and thought that was fine comedy.  But I have seen Center Stage.  I saw it in the theatre as a matter of fact, and my friends and I enjoyed it immensely...just not in the way we were supposed to.  If we're talking about awesomely bad movies, it's a fine choice.  You have to put great in quotation marks, though.

That one quibble aside, I almost thought I would pull it off.  They have a small classics section with a couple of Hitchcock films, but they didn't have the one I needed.  I scanned the section twice, walked through the entire movie section, and then went back to the classics.  Strangers on a Train still wasn't there, but maybe they'd have The Great Train Robbery.  Planes, Trains, and Automobiles?  Or...those are really the only train related movies I've heard of, and none of them were on the shelves. 

There were movies about planes and cars and Speed was handy if only I needed something bus related.  One movie had a trolley on the cover, which seemed to be taunting me with how much it's almost a train.  I discovered that there are quite a few transportation-based films out there, but none of them was related to the one I needed.  A quick trip through the books and then the magazines convinced me that trains are woefully under represented in popular culture for adults.  What happened to the glory of riding the rails?  I mean, that's mostly the self-pity talking because I couldn't tell you where the nearest train station is.  If I had to guess, though, I'd say Atlanta.

Now, I was in that mood where I was determined to buy something just to have done with it.  Here's where a liberal arts degree comes in handy because I remembered a quote from The Importance of Being Earnest : "I never travel without my diary.  One must always have something sensational to read on the train." 

I picked up a gender neutral black journal to which I hope to find a relatively untacky way to attach said quote (Just long enough make the connection clear.  It will also be easily removable.)  I also grabbed a copy of Hot Fuzz for myself.  Done and done!

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (2)

At work today, a patron asked me how to spell a couple of words.  I always think it’s funny when someone asks me to do that because for someone with a master’s degree in English, I’m a pretty terrible speller.  I managed both of today’s words without having to look anything up, which is a nice ego boost, but I’m still surprised when I’m called upon to do it.  A few months back, there was a man who used to fairly regularly approach me and ask how to spell different things.  One afternoon, he asked how to spell ‘lettuce’ and later ‘cabbage,’ but then things took a darker turn as he asked how to spell ‘alcohol,’ ‘marijuana,’ ‘intoxicated,’ ‘assault,’ and ‘angrify.’  We spelled that last one E-N-R-A-G-E-D.  On the one hand, I found this fascinating, like a reverse sort of Mad Lib.  I spent most of the afternoon trying to come up with a story that contained all of those words.  On the other hand, it would never occur to me to ask a librarian how to spell something.  I would ask how to get online so I could look it up, or I would ask where I could find a dictionary, but I wouldn’t take the direct route and just ask the thing I really wanted to know.

 

Working in a library is interesting because I discovered people call us to find out all kinds of things.  When I first got the job, someone called to ask what sort of Easter activities were happening around town, which threw me because I’d just moved and wasn’t familiar with local traditions, but also because if I wanted to know that, I’d probably call any of the local churches, the most relevant city government office I could find in the phone book, or the local newspaper and poll my neighbors before I called the library.  Someone recently wanted to know what time a local skating rink opened, which was a much trickier question than it should have been since the rink didn’t feel they should have either an answering machine or a website that gave their hours.  A patron who overheard me on the phone actually gave me the answer, for which I’m truly grateful. 

 

When I emailed some friends and mentioned the variety of questions I’d been researching, two of them anonymously called up to ask me: “What does it mean if it burns when I pee?”  I stammered a bit, and basically told them what I wanted to tell the lady who brought in her art for us to appraise: Perhaps you should consult a professional.  I don’t want to underestimate what I can do with a liberal arts education and the power of the internet, but…

Continue reading "Just Ask" »

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My friend Sherry and I had a plan.  Some people hope to make it rich by winning the lottery, but Sherry and I decided to write a series of mysteries.  We both read them a lot, so we know the genre.  For the type we're planning to write, the kind we've seen in dozens of incarnations all over the library, we need to have a few key things: a spunky heroine, a sassy sidekick (preferably a woman of color or an old lady although in a pinch a slutty friend will do.  It helps if the friend in question is rich to finance the heroine's snooping.), at least one hunky love interest--although two is fairly common, and titles that are puns.  But mostly, you gotta have a gimmick.

Sherry and I have talked about this quite a bit, especially after we've been shelving because that's usually when we come across books we'd never heard about before.  There are quite a few cozy mysteries that are based around the main character's job or hobby.  The quirkier the better.  We've been keeping a list of unusual themes.  So far, we've found the following: Nuns as sleuths, knitters as sleuths, Roman Empire mysteries, Rat Pack mysteries (with titles like Everybody Kills Somebody Sometime and Luck Be a Lady, Don't Die --see what I mean about the titles?), priest mysteries, art therapy mysteries, mystery shopper mysteries, fly fishing mysteries, stand up comedy mysteries, wine lover mysteries (the most recent of which is entitled Corked by Cabernet), and home renovation mysteries.

It's kind of mind blowing, and sometimes when Sherry comes across something unusual, like the book that somehow involves both murder and award winning preserves classified as "a home crafting mystery," she'll leave it on my desk for me to find.  It's always quite a treat.  The problem was if we were going to write our own series, it would be best to stake out our own unique niche that no one else has used yet.  Sherry told me that she used to make false teeth for a living, and we thought there might be something there.  But it turns out there is already a dentist themed series on the market.  I do a little yoga, but there are a few of those out there as well.

   

There are some other possibilities we haven't researched fully.  I used to work as a Sno-Fun girl making shaved ice treats in a gas station.  Sherri used to work in customer service for Wal-Mart, and I'm sure there's a book or three in that, although I'm not sure any of them would be mysteries.  Maybe the mystery of why someone thinks they have the right to return a phone they bought a year ago from an entirely different retail chain, but that's more of a character driven type story.  Perhaps we could write some sort of travel mysteries, which would allow us to see the world in the name of "research," but something tells me that if we've already got Sudoku mysteries (and we do), then someone's probably already thought of that scam.

Still, we daydreamed about the project off and on until we made two recent discoveries:

(1) Sherry pulled a novel about an army brat family since she grew up in one of those.  It was one of her last remaining ideas, and it's been taken.

(2) I read a review of a mystery that centers around a former dancer turned "cruise entertainment director." 

At this point, I'm not sure there's any subject that hasn't already been mined.  We may have to give up our dream.  The good news is, soon we'll be able to buy lottery tickets.

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (5)

I went to Pub or Perish last night.  I thought I was there early enough, but I didn't see any seats available.  After loitering around for a few minutes, I saw some guys get up and leave, so I casually wandered over to their table.  I put my hand on the back of one of the chairs at about the same time that an older lady came up and did the same thing. 

We smiled shyly at each other, and she asked, "Oh!  Are you sitting here?" 

I admitted that I'd been thinking about it, but the lady, whose name is Ann, agreed that since we'd both come alone, we'd just sit together.  We chatted a bit, and when another lady sidled up to our table, Ann asked if she was looking for a place to sit.  She offered our extra seat, adding, "We just met!"  When she said it, the arrangement seemed like a such a lark.

Now, I knew that the other lady was Dorothy Allison, the author of Bastard Out of Carolina which has led to my mild 5 year obsession with the idea of people washing their hair in baby urine, but Ann didn't.  Dorothy introduced herself and we shook hands all around.  I didn't know what to say, really, but Ann talked about some of the panels she'd seen earlier and eventually we chatted pretty companionably.  At some point, it came out that our newest tablemate was a writer who would be reading that night.  Ann asked me if I'd known that, and I admitted that I'd read one of her books.

We ordered food.  Lots of people came over to introduce themselves to Dorothy, and every time she introduced me and Ann.  I found it both embarrassing and a little thrilling because I felt like a total fraud sitting there as if I knew or had some connection to Ms. Allison.

I spent about 20 minutes having an inner debate with myself, but I finally took a deep breath and asked the pee question.

Continue reading "Best Seat in the House" »

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (2)

I love a festival, but a literary festival is particularly exciting for me because I studied creative writing in grad. school.  And grad. school is kind of a funny place where you can immerse yourself in a community where the things you care about become very big and important.  I actually love talking to people who study things outside my field and are as obsessed with their own subjects as I am with mine.  I used to watch CSI with my roommate who was getting her Ph.D. in chemistry because I liked it when she geeked out on the science of the show.  I adore it when people tell, like, math or philosophy jokes because it just hints at an entire culture I hadn't previously known about complete with its own language, its own conflicts, and its own celebrities.  I find that fascinating.

But, obviously, I'm part of my own group of people for whom writers are basically rock stars and people laugh at jokes about post-modernism and Foucault because that's the kind of geek I am.  When I heard Tobias Wolf read and hung around to get him to sign his book for me, I got really nervous and worried so much about not making an ass of myself that I actually just stood mutely until I had to tell him my name, which took me two tries to get right.  So, I wasn't an ass, but I was a big weirdo, making that whole situation a push basically.  Last year, I saw Brad Land at the Arkansas Literary Festival and considered yelling, "I love you!"  That isn't really true, of course, because what I actually mean is: I loved your book, and your hair is really dreamy. 

That might have been an acceptable thing to say, but I was manning a booth and didn't feel like I could chase him down to say that.  Instead, I yelled--and this is true--"Nice sweater!"  I did mean it.  It was a vintage-looking maroon Izod cardigan that looked very nice on him.  He smiled and said, "Thanks!" as he headed out of the tent.  You guys, I'm totally lame.

Still, I'm very excited about the Arkansas Literary Festival this weekend.  I'm working Saturday, so I'll be missing some good talks, which sucks.  I did check out a panel this afternoon, and I'm looking forward to Pub or Perish tomorrow night.  My friend Jay and I have a running debate about Dorothy Allison's Bastard Out of Carolina because for some reason I thought it was going to be a funny, lighthearted read, which made the actual story that much more devastating as I read about Bone's abusive upbringing.  But Jay always points out the part in the book where they talk about washing a woman's hair in baby pee to make it shiny, saying, "Come on, that's hilarious!"  I suppose it might also be a handy household hint, but I've never tried it.  I'd like to hear her read, and maybe, if the opportunity presents itself, I'll ask the top five questions I have about the collection and usage of an infant's urine. 

I'm also looking forward to Wells Tower because I read an article in Poets and Writers about how he was a carnie for a week and then ran away from the circus.  Awesome.  I hear his book is great, too, but he had me at "ex-carnie."  In tenth grade, our journalism teacher sent us to the fair to conduct interviews.  I talked to a guy who told me his name was One Ball, and while I had a lot of questions about that, none of them seemed fit for a high school newspaper.  Plus, I was scared.  The only good quote I got was from another student named Travis Blakeney, who proudly told me, "Yeah...I touched a goat."  If the circus is anything like the fair, running away seems like a smart move.

If that angle didn't hook me, this quote from a NY Times article on Tower would: "[F]or subsequent pieces he immersed himself in the disparate worlds of New Orleans voodoo, interstate truckers, a Pentecostal preacher, professional miniature golf players, compulsive gamblers and Wal-Mart workers."  You can read the entire piece here.

I'm looking forward to geeking out this weekend, and maybe I'll even manage to say something as witty and charming as "Nice sweater!"

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (0)

Reading a television blog, I found out the newest episode of the TBS comedy My Boys had a subplot that involved a mustache growing contest.  Have you ever seen guys do this?  I have.  I met two guys at a party who were two weeks into just such a competition, and the results were fairly skeevy looking.  Then again, if you’re the kind of guy who’s willing to competitively grow facial hair, I’m guessing you’re not terribly vain.  I found the look distracting, but I talked to them both anyway because I found what they were doing completely fascinating.

 

This type of weird, perhaps slightly misplaced creativity is something I love about guys.  I consider myself a creative person in some ways, but I’m stunned that someone came up with such an idea.  Who?  How?  Why?  Some ideas just strike me as something only a guy would come up with like my friends’ Rube Goldberg project in college or books like Pride and Prejudice and Zombies and How to Survive a Robot Uprising.  There’s also a contest some guys I know call The Race to the Bottom, where one tries to say something so disgusting that everyone else is too busy trying to suppress their gag reflex to top it.  When a young guy I know told me about a milk chugging contest, I was shocked because I don’t know any woman who would even imagine such a thing, let alone compete.

 

“That’s disgusting!” I told him.  “Why would anyone do that?”  Obviously, you’d do it to win, but the fact that I didn’t understand that is why I’d never orchestrated one.  All I focused on were the unpleasant elements, and winning—not prize money mind you, but the satisfaction of beating someone else and the pride that comes from being awarded a made up title—meant less to me than the general pleasures of not throwing up. 

 

I accidentally stumbled upon the contest as it was happening.  I noticed a crowd and walked over to see what was going on.  In the middle of a circle of guys, two dudes faced off, each holding a gallon of whole milk and a trash bag.  The rules were simple: they had an hour to drink, and whoever drank the most in that time period or didn’t throw up first was the winner.

 

I sidled up to my friend.  “I can’t believe this,” I said, but he shrugged it off.  I stayed, checking out the scene for a few minutes.  Then I thought: I can’t believe I’m even watching this.  I should go.  I should definitely go.

 

But I couldn’t.  The concept was gross, but it was also compelling.  At first glance, it’s not that exciting.  It’s the psychology of it that kept me riveted.  The guys sized each other up like in a Wild West shoot out.  Each of them was trying to figure out how much the other guy’d had.  Who was ahead?  How much did he have to do to stay ahead without risking becoming sick?  There were a lot of factors to balance, which made each gulp seem important.  In the crowd, we analyzed their body language, looking for signs that one of them might be close to breaking. 

 

I realized part of me was waiting for someone to throw up.  I wasn’t comfortable with knowing that about myself, and I wanted to leave more than ever.  But I’d managed to get sucked and now I felt the urge to see it through.  I stayed for maybe fifteen minutes.  I made a little idle conversation with the boys around me, hoping to mask my interest in the main event.  Then, the competitor closest to me put his milk down and grabbed the trash bag with both hands.  The second I saw his shoulders hunch, the whole thing lost its mesmerizing hold on me.  I left quickly because even though I’d been waiting for it to happen, I didn’t want to watch.

 

There’s nothing particularly redeeming about such a contest.  I’m pretty sure the winner is no better off for having participated in it, and I’m certainly not a better person for having witnessed it.  But there’s something intriguing about the fact that someone even imagined such a thing.  Maybe guys do this all the time, but it’s new to me.  I generally have a higher tolerance and greater appreciation for ideas that don’t involve vomit, which is why experimenting with creative facial hair or inserting zombies into classic literature is preferable.  Still, I love those moments when I’m hanging out with my guy friends, where I feel like I get a glimpse of how their minds work in ways mine never would.  It’s amazing.

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (1)

I just finished an online class, so I've been giving my brain a much needed break.  I picked up a stack of mysteries from work, and I've been making my way through those. 

When I want something light, I read "cozy mysteries," which are mysteries that frequently feature some sort of theme (coffee mysteries, Sudoku mysteries, gardening mysteries.  One day we'll talk about the absurd number of hobbies and professions that have been the basis for a mystery series) and usually have titles that are puns on the chosen theme.  In these books, somehow the dead people are almost never the point.  Murder is mostly a puzzle to solve.  I also only read mysteries written by women.  I’ve made a few exceptions, but the last one I read is a pretty good example of why I tend to avoid the male authors.

It was a standup comedy mystery written by a guy who is a professional comedian.  It was a weird mix of cozy mystery and attempts at noir.  There were basically two women in the story, a sexy redhead and a sexier desert goddess.  Both women slept with our hero—a brawling, Irish comic—but other than that, they didn’t DO anything.  One of them actually orchestrated the murders, but she outsourced all the actual work of putting her schemes into action.  *Sigh.*

So, I read books written by women because the chicks are always in the middle of the action. That doesn’t guarantee that I’ll like them, though.  When I found a book called Ninja Soccer Moms, I didn’t have high expectations, but I read a few pages on Google books out of curiosity.  I forced myself to read until our heroine got her shirt caught in a paper shredder, but that right there is a deal breaker.  I’m pretty sure that’s neither funny nor possible.

Continue reading "Maybe the Guy with the Mysterious Scratches and No Alibi Did It" »

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (0)

I called my best friend today to find out where she would be doing her residency, but she reminded me that she finds out on Thursday, helpfully clueing me in that today was Wednesday.  I felt bad until she reminded me that she never calls me on my birthday.  We've known each other since we were 18, but she always thinks my birthday is the 7th instead of the 8th.  The one time she called me on the day, she apologized for the late birthday wishes.

Since we weren't figuring out where I would be traveling to visit her for the next four years, I told her I was going purse shopping.  She agreed that sounded fun until I said, "I know exactly what I want."

"NOOOO!" she said with a laugh because she knows what I always forget about me, which is that I think what I want is simple until I start looking for it.  Then, I realize that I have a lot of opinions.  I don't think that's a bad thing.  It means that I know what I want.  But, then again, I remember the first time I saw Meg Ryan order pie in "When Harry Met Sally," and I realized this person was me, basically.  This is what I look like to people who have witnessed me buying shoes or shopping for underwear.  Or purses.  It's why I usually shop for those things alone now.  "I just want it the way I want it," Sally says, and I think: Exactly.

So, Christi made fun of me because it's possible I will spend an improbably long time looking for a black bag in which to stash my stuff.  Because I've started looking, and now I know that want I really want is something that doesn't have much structure.  It should be big enough that it could hold two books, my lunch, a magazine, makeup bag and a sweater.  Ideally, it could be used as carry on luggage in a pinch, but not look like luggage.  Minimal texture.  A braided strap is a deal breaker.  Two straps are preferable to one, and length matters.  Simple.

Which reminds me of another line from the movie where Harry concludes that Sally is a high maintenance woman who thinks she's low maintenance.  I think I actually am low maintenance, but then again, if that characterization fits me, I would think that.  It's a conundrum.  But if I meet a smart, funny guy who is okay with how much I hate tomatoes, and onions, but not if they're cooked in olive oil.  Deep frying them is out of the question, though.  Or the way I'm creeped out by mayonnaise, unless it's in chicken salad or maybe on French fries.  And if that same guy can respect how much I dislike mixing salty and sweet flavors in one dish, well, then I might just have to fake an orgasm for him in a deli.

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (4)

Sometimes I refer to myself as faux Irish.  I'm pretty sure my last name is Irish, and I like their beer.  Occasionally I refer to the Irish as "my people" because I think that's funny, but, I mean, that's a stretch.  I have a fondness for Ireland, but that's mostly because I spent a semester in Cork.  It's travel nostalgia.

I took a semester of Gaelic while I was there, and the title for this post is my favorite thing to say in that language.  It means "post office."  I can also say "It is raining" and I know the verbs for "to run" and "to be pregnant," although let's not get into the whys of that.  My Irish friends used to infuriate me by saying that Gaelic is a very phonetic language.  Spanish is phonetic.  Gaelic is a language where, like, if you put an L and an M together you get a V sound, but only if it's proceeded by a certain vowel.  So, ask yourself, if you were going to take a purely phonetic attempt to pronounce "oifig an phoist"  what would that sound like? 

But for all my superficial Irishness, I get a little excited about St. Patrick's Day.  Is it because I look good in green and like dark beer?  Probably.  But I have a CD that I picked up in Killarney (my friends and I went to hear a band play based mostly on the fact that a man outside the pub warned us against going in to hear "the devil's music."  Apparently, Satan loves a good reel.) that will find it's way into rotation along with The Frames and The Pogues.  I'll have a pint of Murphy's Irish Stout and think fondly my time living in a tiny apartment on Pope's Quay.

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today is my birthday.  Every year when my friends and family ask what I want for my birthday, I always think what I'd like is for someone who is not me to plan something and tell me when to show up.  That's what happened last year, and it was AWESOME! 

I'm never quite prepared for my birthday, but his year I have an excuse.  I got a bad case of food poisoning that's kept me out of it since Monday.  By the time I felt better, I didn't have time to plan anything.  Since I've done nothing since I got back from vacation except sleep and catch up on "General Hospital," I spent a lot of my birthday washing laundry and cleaning my apartment.  Still, it was a beautiful day, so I did a little run outside.  All of my friends contacted me to wish me a happy birthday.  I'm going for coffee later and may buy myself a little something cake-like to celebrate.  Come to think of it, the fact that I can hold down solid foods seems like a pretty fantastic gift considering the way the week started off.

It's certainly not the worst birthday I've ever had.  That would have to be the year I spent my birthday on a geology field trip.  My friend Jay Carney--whom I adore--cast the final vote that meant I'd spend my birthday ankle deep in liquefied shale where they were building the tunnel on I-540.  We went inside the hill, which was partially dug out at the time, so Jay gave me one of the hard hats the construction crew was passing out as his present to me.  It's hard to be mad at Jay, but I managed for several minutes that day.

Maybe the worst part was when our instructor, whom we all secretly called "The Gooch" pulled over on the side of the interstate and made us all get out.  We stood there as traffic whizzed by, and people honked and yelled at us, and all the while, The Gooch was sketching on a small white board and trying to point out a nearby example of rock folding.  She was so absorbed with the white board, that she didn't notice when a small faction of our class broke away to run after a car of people they felt had been particularly rude.  They screamed obscenities and extended their middle fingers.  Happy freakin' birthday.

So, I'm a year older.  Because of Daylight Savings Time, I also lose an hour of my birthday.  It's been pointed out to me that I should party extra hard today, since it's the shortest birthday I'll ever have.  I haven't exactly done that, but unless a crazy lady in a geology van shows up (and if I get in, really, I deserve whatever happens after that), it's been a pretty lovely day.

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (4)

New Orleans was amazing.  My friends John and Randy were fantastic hosts, and they knew some of the best places to watch the parades.  I discovered that I catch beads like someone who was traumatized by them as a child with a lot of flinching and looking away at the last minute.  I got hit in the head more than once as a result of some long strands of beads and my overall poor form.

We dropped in on a lot of their friends, and everyone was incredibly generous with their food, booze, and conversation.  I can get a little nervous in situations where I don't know a lot of people.  I tend to hang back and try to get a feel for the situation instead of jumping in with both feet.  But when we visited a man named Tony, he insisted that I get something to drink.  "Eat something," he said when he noticed I didn't have a plate.  And since the potato salad looked amazing and there was king cake, that was a pretty easy order to obey.  I was constantly overwhelmed by everyone's hospitality.

Parade Float.

Sunday night, John, Randy, and I were going to a party, and then they were going to leave to go to the Bacchus ball.  So, they were in nice suits, whereas I was dressed to go to a street parade outside their friend Lisa's building.  In the lobby, Randy got a call, and when he hung up, he waved at me, indicating my jeans and Converse sneakers, and asked, "Can you turn that into formal wear in 20 minutes?"  They'd gotten an extra ticket to the ball.

Continue reading "Nothing Quite Like Southern Hospitality" »

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (3)

I'm going to New Orleans this weekend for Mardi Gras.  There's a certain embarrassment that I feel about saying that, like maybe that's a ritual I'm too old for.  As if I said I was going to spend my 31st birthday on Spring Break.  So, I hasten to add that I will be going to stay with friends, check out some parades, and see the city.  I've never been to New Orleans before, and I'm not planning to spend my first visit (or any subsequent ones) showing my breasts to strangers and trying not to get thrown up on amidst a crushing throng of drunk people.

I don't do well with crowds, especially drunk crowds.  Outside of my brother and my kindergarten arch nemesis, I've only hit one other person, and it was at a concert in one of the smaller bars on Dixon Street.  Everyone was crammed together and a guy tried to get closer to the stage by more or less crawling over me.  Seems he was just desperate to give the lead singer a hat.  See, that struck me as kind of stupid, but I would have overlooked it, but for the crawling over me.  I was also taking kickboxing classes that summer, which made me more aggressive.  I backfisted him in the face.  Just a little bit.  Practically a love tap right below the eye.  But it was enough to convince him to find another path to the stage.  So, as the date approaches, I'm getting a little nervous about picking this particular weekend to make my first trip to the Big Easy.

I'm staying with my friends John and Randy, though, both of whom are tons of fun.  Randy and I once played an intensely competitive game of Taboo against a guy our age and two children under the age of 13.  If memory serves, we were on fire with one of saying "Edie Sedgwick" and the other responding with "Andy Warhol."  We creamed those kids.  The guys assured me that they do a more laid back version of Mardi Gras, so I'm going to head down and see for myself.

Posted by Ashley McKelvy | Permalink | Comments (6)